TeamLease, which manages more than 85,000 frontline employees in areas such as sales, customer care, and field operations, has recruited up to 7,000 new collection agents for banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), credit card firms, microfinance institutions, and fintech companies. “This is a direct result of the challenges we’ve seen in the unsecured loan segment, and as a result, the demand for collection agents has increased by over 30%,” said Krishnendu Chatterjee, VP and business head, TeamLease Services.
“In many cases, lenders have shifted sales roles into collection roles.” The central bank increased risk weights on unsecured loans to reduce systemic risks, and to prevent a further increase in potential stress in bank balance sheets since retail segment was at vanguard of credit demand lately.
During the same period last year, the agency had hired 4,500 specialised collection agents. But this year, the demand remains robust for more hands on the deck. “Right now, we have active requests from microfinance institutions and credit card companies to add another 1,000 agents,’ Chatterjee said. Collection agents are required to obtain a debt recovery agent certification from the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance. Their compensation is incentive-based with a fixed base salary typically ranging from ₹15,000 to ₹17,000 per month.
Apart from hiring collection agents, lenders are increasing their use of technology to enhance collection efforts in these sectors. “Over the past 9 to 12 months, we’ve observed a slight decline in collections across the industry,” said Amit Talgeri, chief risk officer at Axis Bank. “However, we’ve made significant improvements in our collections infrastructure, partnered with more agencies, and most importantly, leveraged technology to ensure we can reach the right customers faster than our competitors.”